


The Yellow in His Soul

by hazel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Hufflepuff Harry, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-20
Updated: 2004-09-20
Packaged: 2017-11-14 06:49:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazel/pseuds/hazel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a universe with no Tom Riddle, in which the Marauders didn’t really grow up. In a horrible chain of events on Halloween 1981, James and Sirius let off some magical fireworks inside the Potter residence. Lily and James Potter are killed; Sirius Black gets trapped in his Animagus form; and little baby Harry, upstairs and asleep at the time of the explosion, miraculously survives….</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Yellow in His Soul

**Author's Note:**

> originally written for the harry_and_ron community on livejournal. beta'd by jessikast and manic_subbie.

Petunia Dursley was always horribly ashamed of her sister. It wasn't the magic which made Lily so impossible to be around; Petunia had never felt threatened or particularly impressed by her sister's ability to make the cutlery dance. No, indeed, it was for quite another reason that Petunia avoided Lily at all costs - the alcohol. It was Lily who had come home from school after her Sixth Year with green hair and a vacant expression on her face, never mind that Petunia had brought Vernon home that evening for the very first time; Lily who had declared that her only plans after school were to travel to India and try the cannabis there; Lily who had almost ruined Petunia's own wedding reception with a drunken rendition of "Blame It On the Boogie."  
  
That husband of hers was worse, though. Slovenly, with hair he never bothered to comb and teeth he never bothered to brush, James Potter was a mindless twit who lived off his inheritance and spent his days gallivanting about the countryside with his hooligan friends, never mind that his totally unprepared wife was left at home to cope with their squalling infant. Lily and James Potter entertained whoever came by, offering weed and strong spirits in the same way Petunia, picture of middle-class respectability, would offer a nice scone; they wrote mocking Christmas Cards with pictures of dancing reindeer on the front; they didn't even seem to realise that they had an impressionable young child about the house who might be corrupted by their antics. Eventually, James went too far and hexed poor Vernon while in an alcoholic stupor; his horrible friends had just laughed and refused to end the spell. That was that, Vernon announced: the Potters were never to be welcome in the Dursley residence in Privet Drive, again. Lily and James had responded by sending Howlers for a good six weeks and refusing to allow young Dudley and Harry to play together ever again.  
  
So when Petunia got a letter from a Wizarding solicitor on Guy Fawkes in 1981, she was both shocked and a little dismayed. No good could come of having a horrible owl leave droppings on her new formica kitchen bench, or of having a thick parcel of parchment dropped on the table. When she came to open the top letter, her very worst fears were confirmed. Lily and James were dead, and James' horrible best friend Sirius Black incapacitated in some unspecified way. For this reason, Petunia and Vernon Dursley were being formally requested as per Wizarding law to assume the guardianship of Harry James Potter, age 15 months, until such a time as Harry James Potter was able to assume control of his own affairs.  
  
Petunia's shrieks sent the bluebirds of Privet Drive flying for the trees, and disturbed the otherwise calm quiet of the neighbourhood.  
  
*  
  
The first letter Harry Potter ever received arrived by owl, which he thought a little unusual. His Aunt Petunia pursed her lips particularly hard when it dropped through the mailbox, but hadn't asked to open it before him; his Uncle Vernon, though, pulled himself out of his armchair muttering about "those freaks" and chased him sluggishly about the kitchen. "I will have none of that nonsense in my house," he'd growled, “none of it. Your nutty parents almost killed me with their _abnormality_ , and I'm not having it. Not any of it!"  
  
"Oh, Vernon," Aunt Petunia sighed. "Heaven knows that the boy is shaping up just like his father, but I don't think his abnormality is necessarily something we can control - let's just let him go, and then we won't have to deal with him. Mother and Father, God rest their souls, never had to pay a penny for Lily's education; it said in the letters we got when he arrived that we wouldn't have to worry about that."  
  
Uncle Vernon, with an eye to buying a red convertible, was easily swayed by the great good sense of this line of argument, and surrendered with a huff. "You'll have to take him to London to get his school things, though."  
  
So off Harry and Aunt Petunia had gone, armed with a list of requirements and a strange-looking key that Petunia dug out of her jewellery box. "Mind you do exactly what I say," she warned him. "Your Uncle Vernon is unhappy enough about you following the path of your parents, and he will not stand for any hijinks while we're away from home."  
  
"Yes, Aunt Petunia," Harry replied sullenly.  
  
"None of that," she snapped. "I have to prepare for Dudley to go away to Smeltings, and I can't have you taking up my time."  
  
*  
  
The trip to London was taken on the train, and Harry whiled away the time by staring out the window and answering his Aunt's periodic demands of good behaviour. When they eventually arrived on the corner of two dirty streets, Aunt Petunia leaned down and hissed in his ear, "Now, we're looking for something called the Leaky Cauldron. I can't see it, but you should be able to. Find it quickly, now, and don't dawdle."  
  
Harry, who hadn't managed to concentrate on any one particular thing since they'd arrived in London, widened his eyes and tried to look for a sign. "There, Aunt Petunia, there's a door on the corner."  
  
"Good. Now, I'll follow you - don't get any further than the doorway or you won't get any supper." Harry knew from long practise that threats like that weren't empty, and so obeyed. When they got inside the Leaky Cauldron, Harry saw that it was an old pub, the kind where everyone turned to look at the door opening and nobody looked very friendly. Aunt Petunia curled her skinny fingers on his shoulder and marched him over to the bar, where she addressed herself to the barkeep in affronted accents. "I need to know the way to Diagon Alley," she said.  
  
"Muggles, are you?" the barkeep smiled in a friendly manner, and then frowned when she glared at him. "I'll get the door for you, shall I?"  
  
"Please," Aunt Petunia responded, and it wasn't a question.  
  
Harry was completely unprepared for the sight of Diagon Alley. It was full of people in brightly coloured clothes that looked like dresses, even though men wore them and so he could tell that they weren't really, and odd smells and animals and people talking in all kinds of languages and accents. There was a man in jeans and a tee shirt standing not ten feet away from the entrance, and it was in that direction that Aunt Petunia propelled Harry. "Are you the muggleborn guide as listed in the Hogwarts Academy letters?" she asked him.  
  
"Oh, yes, and who might you be?" the man said, addressing himself to Harry.  
  
"I'm Harry Potter, sir," Harry replied politely.  
  
"Hmm, you're not on my list," the man slowly pondered.  
  
Aunt Petunia sniffed. "His parents were of your kind. Killed, you see - my husband and I raised the boy."  
  
"Oh, I see," said the man. "Well, I'm William Ackleberry, and welcome to the Wizarding world, young Harry, or at least England's version of it. Come along, and you too, Mrs...."  
  
"Mrs. Petunia Dursley," Aunt Petunia replied.  
  
The group eventually met up with fourteen other students and their parents. Harry was the only one without parents there, in fact, and the only one whose guardian knew something of what she was seeing. Harry was oddly proud of Aunt Petunia for not screaming like some of the mothers when they entered Eeylops Owl Emporium, a large shop with feathers scattered everywhere and the scent of droppings. He didn't speak much to the other children; Dudley had managed to scare most of the other children away from him at their primary, and the others avoided him after one too many strange things happened around him. There were three blonde girls with pigtails, each different only because of their accents, a boy who shyly introduced himself as Dean Thomas, a lot of other boys who all had sandy hair and freckles, and a rather bossy girl with large teeth and bushy hair.  
  
The day passed fairly quickly after that. Aunt Petunia and Harry were the only ones to have to enter the vaults of the bank, Gringotts, and so they arranged to meet up with everyone at Ollivanders' Wand Shop. With so many people around, Harry didn't get a very good look at anything, although he did buy a very nice brown owl which he called Mary. His wand was ten inches, holly and phoenix feather, and Harry thought that Mr. Ollivander had looked at him a little oddly when the wand had sparked in his hand.  
  
When they finally got home, Petunia packed all of his things carefully into his new trunk, except for his schoolbooks, and put the trunk at the end of his bed. It made the room even tighter to get around in, but Harry didn't have many toys anyway - he mostly got Dudley's cast offs - and he thought going to a school for magic was better than anything Dudley had gotten ever.  
  
*  
  
Aunt Petunia took him on the train up to London, where he'd be catching another train up to Hogwarts. Uncle Vernon didn't want to be bothered: Dudley's uniform for Smeltings had arrived, and Uncle Vernon was still trying to teach him how to knock a chair out from someone with his Smeltings stick. The train trip wasn't as interesting the second time round, and as they had to be at Platform 9 3/4 by ten thirty at the latest, they'd had to leave Little Whinging quite early in case of delays. Harry was very excited, certainly, and a little apprehensive, and so he barely listened to Aunt Petunia's lectures when they arrived at Kings' Cross Station.  
  
"Now, I used to have to go onto the Hogwarts Platform when I was a girl, to wave off your mother. Of course, _she_ was always too concerned with her friends to pay a blind bit of attention to her family, but that's another story. From memory, you just run into the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten, and you'll find yourself on the platform."  
  
"Yes, Aunt Petunia," Harry said in a respectful tone. He was finding out all sorts of interesting new facts about his aunt, now that he was going to learn how to be a wizard. Who knew that Aunt Petunia knew how to get onto secret train platforms?  
  
"Hurry, now," Aunt Petunia said, "and I'll wave you off. Now, I expect a letter once a term, at least, and your Uncle and I have agreed that you can come back to Surrey for Christmas and Easter if you like." The last was said a little begrudgingly, but Harry didn't pay that any attention; after all, he knew that his Aunt and Uncle didn't love him very much.  
  
The platform was a lot like Diagon Alley, only there were a lot more children, and every few feet there were conductors in heavy robes shouting to the children in an attempt to get them to stow their trunks in the luggage compartment. "Hurry up, Harry," Aunt Petunia said impatiently. "You'll want to find a compartment."  
  
"Yes, Aunt Petunia," Harry said, and pushed his trolley over to the luggage compartment, where a weedy little man in short sleeves and a trilby hat waved the trunks up into storage with a flick of his wand.  
  
"Off you go, young man," the little man said. Harry thanked him - the man looked a little surprised at this - and trotted back to Aunt Petunia, who kissed him on the cheek rather swiftly, attempted for the last time to smooth down his hair, and gave him a plastic bag filled with what looked like sandwiches, a bag of crisps, and two apples.  
  
"Mind you don't spend too much on sweets on the train; Lily did always talk about the Opening Feast. Good luck, Harry," she said swiftly, and pushed him towards the train.  
  
"Thank you, Aunt Petunia," Harry answered, smiling.  
  
*  
  
It took him a while to find an unoccupied compartment, and when he did he checked first to make sure that there were no signs of anyone else's belongings before setting down Mary in her cage and opening his Charms textbook, which looked to be the most fun of the lot.  
  
After about fifteen minutes, a boy with red hair and freckles appeared in the doorway. "Mind if I sit here?" he asked. "My brothers kicked me out of their compartment."  
  
"Hello," said Harry. "I don't mind." It wasn't anyone Harry recognised from the Diagon Alley trip, but the boy looked to be about his own age, so Harry asked, "Are you a First Year, too?"  
  
"Yeah," the boy said. "I've got three older brothers here. Oh! I'm Ron Weasley."  
  
"I'm Harry Potter. Nice to meet you," Harry added, because Aunt Petunia had raised him to be polite.  
  
"D'you like Quidditch, then?" Ron asked eagerly.  
  
"That's the game on broomsticks, right?" Harry asked uncertainly. The boy looked to be nice, and Harry didn’t want to sound stupid. He knew there was lots he didn’t know about Hogwarts and magic, but he hadn’t thought that there’d be games that he didn’t know about, even.  
  
"Oh! Are you muggleborn? My dad likes muggle things." Ron had a wide and rather mobile mouth; expressions flickered across his face rapidly.  
  
Harry shook his head. "My mum and dad had magic, but they died when I was a baby. My Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon took me in - I don't think they like magic much, but they let me come here."  
  
"Cool," Ron shrugged. "Sorry 'bout your parents, though."  
  
"Yeah," Harry said quietly, and the conversation skipped effortlessly over everything they could think of. About lunchtime, Ron dug a bag out of his satchel and pulled out some sandwiches.  
  
"Corned beef, yuck," he moaned.  
  
Harry pulled out his own lunch bag from under his coat. "I've got marmite. Want to swap?"  
  
"What's marmite?" Ron asked curiously.  
  
Harry thought about it for a moment, forehead creasing slightly. "Yeast spread, it's nice."  
  
"Yeast like in bread?" Harry nodded. "Muggles are weird." Harry shrugged. "Okay, I'll try it."  
  
"You can stick some of my crisps in it if you want," Harry offered, smiling, after Ron chewed his way thoughtfully through his first bite.  
  
"S'alright," was Ron's verdict. "Won't the crisps make it crunchy, though?"  
  
"That's the point," Harry laughed.  
  
The bushy-haired girl from Diagon Alley turned up at two o'clock, asking if they'd seen a toad. Ron and Harry shrugged. "You're First Years too, aren't you? I'm Hermione Granger. I can't wait for classes - I've read all the textbooks."  
  
"Boring!" Ron replied, scornful, and Harry giggled. The girl huffed off, and Ron and Harry burst into laughter.  
  
Around half-past three, a witch in scarlet robes turned up with a selection of sweets. Mindful of his aunt's advice, Harry carefully picked out two chocolates and a bag of what looked to be jellybeans.  
  
Nobody else showed up until they arrived at Hogwarts. Harry's first glimpse of the school was somewhat obscured by a man with an eyepatch and a wooden leg, who called all the First Years over to him and instructed them to get into small boats. Harry climbed into one with Ron and two of the boys from Diagon Alley; they introduced themselves as Zach Smith and Justin Finch-Fletchey. They were chatting eagerly by the time they got across a rather large lake; Ron, who knew nothing of football, was rather the odd one out, but made up for this by telling them what he knew of the Sorting into Houses.  
  
Inside the Great Hall, Harry waited patiently for his turn under a talking hat. Some of the other students looked nervous; Harry wasn't, really, but that was probably because all of the Houses (except for the green one - the students there looked grumpy) sounded alright.  
  
"Potter, Harry," the old, stern witch called Professor McGonagall eventually called out.  
  
 _Hmm_ , a voice said in his head once the hat was firmly on. _You do have talent, oh yes. But where to put you?_  
  
 _Dunno,_ Harry replied.  
  
 _Well, best not think about it too hard. I think you'll do very well in_ "HUFFLEPUFF!" Harry took the hat off and walked over to the yellow table, who were all cheering and clapping for him. He sat down between Justin and another First Year called Ernie; they were shortly joined by Zach, and another boy named Tony. Ron ended up in Gryffindor, though, and sat next to two red-haired twins who must've been his brothers.  
  
*  
  
The Second Year boys – Harry, Zach, Tony, Ernie, and Justin – clamoured excitedly around the Hufflepuff noticeboard. Two weeks back at school, they’d settled into classes and being in a dormitory again. “Look! Cedric’s looking for a couple of new players!” Tony exclaimed.  
  
“You should try out, Harry,” Ernie said. “You’re the best flyer out of us.”  
  
“Yeah!” said Justin. “Do it for the Second Years!” The others nodded and agreed.  
  
“But I haven’t even got a broom,” Harry protested. “Or any gear.”  
  
The Second Years stepped away from the noticeboard, glum, and trudged over to the group of cushions they’d claimed as their own. Tony pulled out his rather shabby deck of Exploding Snap and dealt them out.  
  
Halfway through the first round, Ernie suddenly perked up. “I’ve got it!” he shouted, drawing looks of disapproval from their elders.  
  
“What?” Zach asked.  
  
Ernie bent his head over the cards, and the others leaned in to hear him. “Well, I got a Nimbus 2000 for my birthday, but I didn’t bring it to school because….”  
  
“You’re a crap flyer?” interjected Zach.  
  
“Shut up!” retorted Ernie defensively. “I only flew into the trees once. Anyway, I have a broom, and don’t you have some gear, Justin?”  
  
“Yeah, my Great-Aunt Millicent is a witch, and she gave me her old guards when she found out that I was coming to Hogwarts. They’re _really_ old, though – she had them when she was at school in the forties.”  
  
“So, tryouts aren’t for another week – we’ve got plenty of time to owl home and get them for Harry.”  
  
“Thanks,” said Harry, grinning, “But won’t your parents mind that you’re lending me your gear?”  
  
Tony bit his lip. “We don’t have to tell them. And I got a brand new pair of goggles from my Aunt and Uncle Lestrange for Christmas last year – I only used them a few times. Besides, you can buy your own equipment when you get on the team.”  
  
“Brilliant,” Zach said, nudging Harry.  
  
Everybody looked at Justin. “I think it’ll work, and one of us should get on the team – Harry has the best chance.”  
  
*  
  
The summer after Third Year, Tony invited Harry to stay for the second half of July. _It’ll be great fun,_ he wrote. _Mother and Father said I could invite anyone I wanted to, and there’s always things to do. We can go swimming in the lake, and Mother knows how to bribe the centaurs in the forest so they’ll give me rides._  
  
Harry, stuck in Little Whinging, thought this a grand idea, and presently asked his Aunt Petunia: “Can I go and stay with a friend in the country for a while in a couple of weeks, please, Aunt Petunia?”  
  
“I don’t see why not,” she replied, bored, and he wrote back to Tony to say that it was alright.  
  
Harry’s first impression of Snape House was that it was large, grey, and rather unfriendly looking. But Tony and his father, a dour looking man with a hooked nose and rather stringy hair, were in the carriage with him, and Tony was obviously hoping that Harry would be impressed. “It’s really… big…” he eventually said, rather lamely.  
  
Tony’s father lifted an eyebrow. “So…” he drawled. “You’re Harry Potter.”  
  
“Yes, sir,” Harry replied, confused, because surely the man knew his name.  
  
“I knew your father,” Mr. Snape said rather abruptly. “We were not friends.”  
  
“Oh,” Harry said, not really sure how he was supposed to respond.  
  
“Father!” Tony fairly shouted, looking highly embarrassed. Mr. Snape looked at his son for a moment, then deliberately turned his head towards the window. “Anyway, there’s the lake – we can go swimming – and, see, there’s a tower up on the West Wing? My playroom was there when I was little, and it’s got the best view in the whole house. And mother has her painting room in the East….”  
  
“Anthony,” Mr. Snape interjected smoothly, “I’m sure you can show your friend around when we get inside. In fact, you may give him the… whole tour, as I believe the muggles phrase it.”  
  
“Yes, Father,” Tony muttered, taking the hint but glaring at his father anyway. Harry wouldn’t have liked to cross Mr. Snape himself, and he thought Tony’s father would explain why Tony never found Professor McGonagall at school scary or snappish at all.  
  
When they finally got inside, two odd little creatures with huge eyes came and got Harry’s luggage, before disappearing with a sharp pop! “House elves,” Tony explained in a murmur to Harry. “Hello, Mum,” he said to the woman waiting in the hall.  
  
Mrs. Snape was a rather short lady, with a mane of carefully curled black locks and a look of sardonic glee in her eyes. But she smiled when she greeted Harry, and said something polite about being very happy to meet one of Anthony’s friends.  
  
“They were both in Slytherin,” Tony told Harry later. “All of the family was, for generations and generations on both sides, ’til my Aunt Andromeda married a muggle-born Ravenclaw. Their daughter, my cousin Nymphadora, was in Hufflepuff too. So they weren’t too mad when I got in Hufflepuff, although Father had wanted me to follow the line, I think.”  
  
“Oh,” Harry answered. “I think my mum and dad were in Gryffindor, but I only have a few photos of them. Aunt Petunia says there’s more, but I can’t see them until I’m older.”  
  
“Weird,” Tony commented. “Oh! You have to meet my dog, Sirius! I got him when I was a toddler, and, d’you know, he’s barely gotten older in all those years? I think Mum might’ve put a spell on him or something.” Sirius was, in fact, a very nice dog – large and black and somehow cuddly. “He doesn’t take much to a lot of the people we have here – dunno why – but he seems to like you, Harry.” Indeed, the dog had carefully sniffed all around Harry’s face and torso, emitted a soft whimper, and promptly laid his head down in Harry’s lap.  
  
At dinner that night, Tony told his mother and father about it. “It was the weirdest thing, Mum, he just wouldn’t leave Harry alone, not even when we went down to the lake. And you know Sirius hates the lake, mum, ever since…”  
  
“…You made him take a bath there when you were seven, yes, Anthony, we know. Harry, you shouldn’t listen to everything Anthony says about us. We’re good people, really,” Mrs. Snape said, smiling.  
  
Harry smiled back. “No, Mrs. Snape, I won’t.”  
  
“Oh, dear, do call me Bellatrix,” Mrs. Snape suggested.  
  
“I’m not surprised he likes you, Harry,” Mr. Snape added, and there was an expression of almost-hidden amusement on the man’s face which Harry didn’t understand. The rest of Harry’s stay passed in that manner; although Mr and Mrs. Snape seemed like very nice people, and Tony obviously loved them very much, there were things going on under the surface that Harry did not understand and was afraid to ask about.  
  
Despite having a wonderful time staying with Tony, Harry was almost glad to get back to the normality of Privet Drive. Uncle Vernon and Dudley might have been intensely annoying, especially since Dudley had taken up boxing at Smeltings, but at least he knew where he stood with them. And Aunt Petunia had turned into a rather nice Aunt, as he understood such things; she’d even given him a brisk talk about what his mother had been like when she was a child.  
  
*  
  
Halfway through Fourth Year, Harry started having wet dreams at night. He never remembered them much in the morning, only that they didn’t involve the expected heaving bosoms of Zach’s Playboy collection. He confided this to the others one late Saturday evening after they’d been drinking butterbeer smuggled up by a Sixth Year from Hogsmeade. “I think I’m gay, mates,” he slurred.  
  
“But… but… Harry!” stuttered Justin.  
  
“What?” he said.  
  
“You play Quidditch!” Ernie explained.  
  
Harry gazed at him. “What’s that got to do with it? Nothing,” he answered for himself. “It’s got nothing to do with it.”  
  
“You don’t like, _like_ any of us, do you?” Zach questioned uncertainly.  
  
Harry’s face contorted. “No! You’re my friends! Ew!”  
  
Tony shrugged. “My mum’s cousin Regulus is a queer,” he said. “Whatever makes you happy… though Susan’ll be disappointed.”  
  
“Yeah,” Ernie agreed. “Hufflepuffs stick together!”  
  
It soon became an open secret amongst the Hufflepuff Fourth Years. Justin and Ernie were a bit shy about changing in front of him, but they got over that when it became apparent that Harry didn’t want to kiss them or anything. Susan and Hannah, far from being disappointed, giggled uncontrollably when Harry told them why he didn’t want to ask a girl to the Yule Ball, although they did promise solemnly never to tell any of their friends from other Houses, “’Specially not the Patil sisters, Harry, ‘coz they’d tell _everyone_!” Lucy and Elizabeth shrugged and didn’t say anything; Harry figured that their loyalty to their House outweighed everything else.  
  
*  
  
Harry was very surprised to receive a Prefect’s badge in his Hogwarts letter the summer after Fourth Year. If he’d thought about it at all, he would have assumed that Tony or Zach would have been the Prefect for their year: Tony because he was smart and polite, and Zach because he was confident and knew everybody.  
  
Harry was even more surprised at the total lack of surprise when he told his friends about it. “Well,” Zach said prosaically, “I’m a better Quidditch strategist than you, even though you’re a better player, and this’ll be Cedric’s last year; I want to be Quidditch Captain next year, and I wouldn’t want to have to do both.”  
  
“Also, the children like you,” Justin said.  
  
“And everyone else,” Ernie added. “Zach’s right about Quidditch, too. Besides, who really wants to have to go to the meetings? It’s OWLs this year, and my parents will kill me if I don’t do well.”  
  
Tony bit his lip. “I must say I’m a little disappointed; both my parents were Prefects, back in the day. But I’m glad you have it, Harry: I think you’ll make a good Prefect, and Ernie’s right, the children do like you.”  
  
Susan was the female Prefect for their Year, so they made their way together down to the Prefect’s compartment on the Express. “Are you nervous, too?” she asked him softly.  
  
“Yeah, a bit,” he confided. “I mean, it’s a lot of responsibility, and I don’t really want to have to take points off people.”  
  
“I know,” she said. “And how do we know if we’re taking off the appropriate amount of points? The badge didn’t come with a guide. Oooh!” she continued, perking up a bit. “Maybe they’ll hand one out now, so we know what to do.”  
  
The other Fifth Year Prefects all looked a little nervous as well: Pansy Parkinson and Eadmund McNair from Slytherin; Terry Boot and Clarissa Rothschylde from Ravenclaw; and Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger from Gryffindor. The Head Boy was Cedric, as all of the Hufflepuffs had hoped, and the Head Girl was Hetty Whitfield, a Gryffindor.  
  
The introductory speech and explanations only took half an hour, which was a lot shorter than Harry expected. Then Hetty handed out guides – Susan let out a soft exclamation of glee when she got hers – and said that they’d be starting patrols from that very night. “I’m planning on holding Hufflepuff Quidditch practises on Wednesday and Saturday nights, so that puts me and Harry here out on those nights,” Cedric said, and Harry fought back a smile – he was the only Fifth Year Prefect also on his House’s Quidditch team, although he’d heard that Ron Weasley was looking to try out, since Oliver Wood had left after Harry’s Third Year, and Colin McNoughty, who’d replaced him, wasn’t coming back for his Seventh Year.  
  
Harry was eventually rostered to cover the Hufflepuff Common Room with Susan on Monday and Tuesday nights, and to do a school patrol with Ron Weasley on Thursdays and with Clarissa Rothschylde on Fridays. The patrols had two shifts – eight until ten pm, and ten pm until midnight. Harry had no morning classes on Fridays, so would be doing the later shift with Ron and the earlier shift with Clarissa.  
  
*  
  
Ron and Harry’s Thursday patrol usually went quite quickly. There were normally only a few students wandering the halls: Luna Lovegood, a Ravenclaw, was a notorious sleepwalker, and there were always First Years looking to explore the corridors after lights out. Apart from that, though, they typically discussed Quidditch, since Ron had made the Gryffindor team, and was a mad Chudley Cannons fan, besides. Harry had picked up his team affiliation – Puddlemere – from Tony and Ernie in First Year, and this made for loud debates as they wandered the halls.  
  
“I can’t believe you’d say that!” Ron exclaimed, one Thursday on their way to Hufflepuff. “I know the Cannons don’t win much, but that doesn’t mean that they should be kicked out of the League. They have fans!”  
  
Truth be told, Harry had only decided to goad Ron in such an obvious manner because he had a very deep crush on the other boy, and liked the way Ron looked when he got excited about things. “You don’t think that maybe people only go to watch because it’s a bit of a spectacle, how bad they are?”  
  
“No way!” Ron disagreed. “They won a match just last season, against Crowley.”  
  
They turned left down a corridor that split two ways – that way to Hufflepuff, and the other way to the Potions laboratories. This hallway was usually well lit, but a _nox_ accident by a Third Year had caused all of the candles to burn out irrevocably earlier that evening, and the caretaker hadn’t replaced them as yet. Harry was not surprised, therefore, when he and Ron came across some of the Second Years.  
  
“Spurlock, Nicholson, and Tremayne,” Harry identified the three young boys. They each had a guilty look on their faces, and Adrian Tremayne was carrying a picnic basket.  
  
Ron looked at them very gravely. He was very tall, and the Second Years particularly short; Harry thought that Ron must appear to them as a looming menace coming out of the dark. “What are you three doing out of bed?” he asked.  
  
“We were going to go up to the Astronomy Tower for midnight snacks,” said Spurlock.  
  
“That wasn’t a very good plan, was it?” suggested Harry.  
  
Nicholson stepped forward. “It was my idea, Harry, please don’t take points off them.”  
  
Harry pretended to ponder the situation for a moment. Since these were his Housemates, he had first right of discipline; Ron looked amused at the whole scene, but didn’t speak. “Well, sneaking out of bed at night isn’t a very good idea, because if you get lost or run into trouble there’s nobody around to help you. But you didn’t get very far, so five points off Hufflepuff, and all three of you have detention with me and Ron tomorrow evening, once you’ve finished classes. Does that sound fair to you?”  
  
“Yes, Harry,” the boys chorused.  
  
“Alright, then,” Ron chipped in, “You lot can go back to bed now.” The boys went back to their dormitory, and Ron sent an admiring look in Harry’s direction. “You dealt with that really well, I thought – although I don’t think the Slytherin Second Years would have listened.”  
  
Harry laughed. “If it’d been _Slytherins_ , I would have pointed out the disadvantages of getting caught. Gryffindors; that school after hours really isn’t that interesting, and Ravenclaws that… well. I’ve never heard of Ravenclaws sneaking out just to explore, have you? To go to the library, yes, but….”  
  
Ron grinned. “I caught Luna Lovegood up in the East Tower last night. She said she was looking for the Snafflepops. Weird, that one.”  
  
Harry smiled at him in agreement. “Yeah, but she seems nice. Anyway, Crowley’s Beaters knocked each other out within five minutes of the game beginning – they were hardly a proper team.”  
  
“Yeah, but that’s just it. _Crowley_ knocked their own Beaters out… the Cannons didn’t do anything to their own players. The Cannons are a better team than Crowley,” Ron said triumphantly.  
  
“Alright, I suppose you have me there,” Harry replied. By this time, it was midnight, and Harry had to go into Hufflepuff or risk losing points himself. “Anyway, I guess I’ll see you in the game on Saturday?”  
  
“Yeah,” Ron said. “It’s my first game.”  
  
“Nervous?” Harry suggested.  
  
“A bit,” Ron answered. “But I’ll be fine – besides, we’re only playing _Hufflepuff_ ,” he said, laughing. Hufflepuff had won the Quidditch Cup for the past three years, so Harry wasn’t hurt by this at all.  
  
“See you then, then,” he said, and went inside.  
  
*  
  
Hufflepuff won, of course, because there wasn’t a better Seeker at Hogwarts than Cedric Diggory, and there wasn’t a better Chaser combination than Potter, Blythe, and Smith. But Harry missed three or four crucial shots, despite Ron Weasley’s less-than-brilliant keeping, and in the end it was only the catching of the Snitch that secured Hufflepuff’s victory.  
  
“You seemed distracted,” Cedric said to him, in the changing rooms. “Have you been having troubles with schoolwork or something?”  
  
“No, no, nothing like that,” Harry hastened to assure him. “I’m not sure what it was, exactly, but I’ll play better next time, promise.”  
  
“It’s okay,” Cedric said. “Everybody has off days occasionally; perhaps I’ll run a few extra practises before the Ravenclaw game.”  
  
“Yeah, cool,” Harry murmured.  
  
Susan, Hannah, and Elizabeth cornered him during the victory party that evening. “You looked a little distracted, Harry,” Hannah said.  
  
“Perhaps you were spending too much time looking at Gryffindor’s new Keeper… not that he was doing much better…” Elizabeth suggested coyly.  
  
“Um,” Harry said, blushing.  
  
“Oh!” Susan exclaimed. “You have a crush on Ron!”  
  
“Do not!” Harry replied.  
  
“Oh, look, he’s blushing,” Hannah smiled. “ _Lucy!_ ” she shouted across the Common Room. “Come over here!” When Lucy made her way past the giggling Second Years, Hannah hissed, “Harry has a thing for Ron Weasley!”  
  
Lucy was a good friend of Lavender Brown, a Gryffindor Fifth Year. “Well, Lavender’s never mentioned anything about Ron seeing anyone, but I heard from Parvati, who heard from Katie that the twins said that Ron had one of his friends to stay last summer, and they spent most of their time alone up in his room! So maybe we can fix them up!”  
  
“That would be so cute!” Susan gushed.  
  
Harry took that as his cue to leave the girls to their plots. He heard a couple of weeks later that Ron was seeing someone, but the rumours weren’t clear as to who or what gender. Their Thursday night patrols remained interesting, and as the school year progressed Ron became a much more confident, and therefore proficient, player, and they spent quite a bit of time discussing different plays, especially those commonly used by the Ravenclaw and Slytherin teams.  
  
*  
  
Zach became Quidditch Captain in Sixth Year, as planned. Harry was glad: he really didn’t want to have to be bothered with both that and being Prefect, and Zach really did know a lot about strategy. They had quite a tough time finding a new Seeker, until Harry gave up and chased after the Snitch himself; much to his surprise, he found it with very little effort, and since his average stature wasn’t a hindrance in school-level games, Zach decided that Harry would be the new Seeker, and Gabriella Ledermann would replace him as Chaser.  
  
The position-switch was the only talk in the Sixth Year Hufflepuff boys’ dorm for about a week. Ernie suggested in an undertone to Harry that perhaps Zach, an obviously inferior player, was trying to sabotage Harry’s chances of getting a professional contract after school; Justin thought the move a good one, since it meant that the loss of Cedric wouldn’t be such a problem when it was time to play against Ravenclaw, who had the very proficient Cho Chang playing Seeker in her final year at school; and Tony attempted to mediate the fights when they got out of hand.  
  
Harry discovered six weeks into term, that his crush on Ron Weasley hadn’t gone away, after all. It was both disappointing and embarrassing for him, since it was clear that Ron wasn’t interested – or didn’t know that Harry was – and, yet, the girls kept teasing him about it, whenever they thought that they wouldn’t be overheard.  
  
“We know he’s cute, Harry,” Susan said, walking out of Herbology one afternoon. “But would it kill you to concentrate on repotting the Lewd Roses a little more?” She said this with a smile, so he knew that she wasn’t really mad at him, but he took the hint.  
  
“Sorry, Susan, I know this is important to you.”  
  
“It should be important to you, too,” she replied. “After all, this is a NEWTs course… I’m surprised Ron’s taking it, actually.”  
  
“Shhh,” he hissed, turning round to make sure Ron wasn’t within earshot. “What if he hears you?”  
  
Hannah, on his other side, giggled. “What if he does?”  
  
“You’re mean and horrible,” Harry claimed. “You know what.”  
  
“Right,” Susan drawled mockingly. “Fine. I’m surprised That Boy is taking Herbology, since he really isn’t very good at it.”  
  
“Better,” Harry said, rolling his eyes, and they made their way to the Library to study their Defence Against the Dark Arts homework – an essay on the ethical reasons for and against the banning of mind-controlling spells.  
  
*  
  
“Okay, this has gone on for long enough,” Zach announced, dragging Harry into the dorm. “Why in Merlin’s name do you like Ron Weasley?”  
  
The other boys were all there too, obviously waiting for Harry to arrive. “Yeah,” Ernie said. “He’s kind of a dick.”  
  
Harry’s eyes widened in thought. “You know, I’m not really sure. I guess I just… like the way he looks, okay?”  
  
Justin laughed. “But he’s so… freckled. And he hasn’t got any curves or anything.”  
  
“’Course he doesn’t,” said Tony. “Harry doesn’t like curves, remember, do you, mate?”  
  
“Oh, yeah,” Justin said. “But, like, really, Harry, you could do so much better.”  
  
“Thanks, I think,” Harry said, blushing. “But he’s always laughing at stuff, and we’ve always gotten on well, and he likes the First Years, and… stuff.” Harry was not about to tell his dormitory mates that Ron Weasley had been featuring in his wet dreams as long as he’d been having them; their acceptance of his sexuality, he suspected, did not quite go that far.  
  
Ernie grimaced. “You really like him, then, Harry?”  
  
Harry shrugged. “Yeah, guess I do.”  
  
“Good,” Zach said, “Because the girls have a plan, apparently. We Hufflepuffs have to stick together.”  
  
*  
  
The summer after Sixth Year passed without much happening. Harry went to stay at Zach’s, and then they all got together for a fortnight at Tony’s. The girls got invited along to stay at Snape Manor as well, and the holidays passed lazily. Zach spent a few days avoiding Lucy like the plague, since he’d sprung an obvious erection the first time he’d seen her in her bathing suit, until she got up the courage to kiss him during afternoon tea one day. After that, they were inseparable.  
  
It was strange the way Sirius, not looking a day older, would follow Harry around, despite Justin’s family owning several hounds and Justin therefore being very practised at fetch and other such games. Even stranger was the way Mr. and Mrs. Snape would smile at the way Sirius would growl at anyone who got too rough with Harry when playing Quidditch friendlies or other games. “He really does like you,” Tony said, and there was a note of jealousy in his voice. “He likes you more than he likes me.”  
  
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Harry assured him. “Maybe it’s just because I’m not here very often?”  
  
“Maybe,” Tony replied, and brightened up a bit at the thought.  
  
At dinner time each evening, Mrs. Snape would make sure that they were all following traditional Wizarding customs. Harry thought that odd, since they hadn’t been nearly so formal when he’d stayed at Snape House on his own, but dismissed it. Mrs. Snape did seem to have a bit of a preoccupation with the fact that Justin, Zach, Hannah, and Elizabeth were muggleborn, but she was never overtly rude about it, just asking a lot of questions about how muggles got around and talked to each other. “How very strange,” became almost a catch-phrase amongst the teenagers that summer, or at least whenever Mrs. Snape was not around.  
  
The girls were all sharing one of the guest suites in the East Wing, the opposite end of the house to where the boys were crashing in Tony’s room. Mr. Snape was heard to mutter something about not encouraging the procreation of Hufflepuff dunderheads underneath his breath, but since Tony got on quite well with his father this was not felt to be a sign that Mr. Snape disapproved of his son’s choice of House or friends. A rather extraordinary number of owls came and went out of the girls’ window, but they kept mum about who and what the letters concerned.  
  
When Harry got back to Privet Drive for the last month of the holidays, Aunt Petunia gave him a cardboard box that smelled rather musty. “I’ve been keeping this in the cupboard under the stairs for you. It’s some photograph albums and some keepsakes that were saved from your parents house. I haven’t given them to you before since I felt you were a little young; I think you’ll see why,” she finished, sniffing.  
  
“Thank you, Aunt Petunia,” he replied, and carefully took the box up to his bedroom, where he put it on the floor and squeezed in beside it. The first thing he noticed, opening the photo album, was that the people – his mother and father! – didn’t move very much. Instead, they stared at the viewer with a rather dazed expression. There were a few gaps in the pages, he noticed, which must have been where the pictures his Aunt had given him years ago belonged. Staring closely at one picture, he saw a bong and a large pile of finely shredded pot; he wondered what exactly his parents had been thinking. In another picture, the people were almost obscured by a haze of green smoke. Harry shut the album with a bang and went back downstairs.  
  
“Aunt Petunia, were my parents stoners?” he asked her, rather abruptly, and she put down her cup of tea with a clink.  
  
Aunt Petunia took a deep breath and lifted her chin. “Harry, your parents, while they were good enough people, I suppose, had certain habits which I thought at the time inappropriate for anyone who intended to properly care for children.”  
  
“So, that’s a yes, then?” he confirmed.  
  
“That’s a rather vulgar way to put it, Harry, but I suppose so,” she answered. “Your Uncle and I have always tried to do our best for you, and I must admit we’ve been pleasantly surprised by how you’ve turned out. Your father was a wild hooligan at times – I remember how he terrified Vernon the first time they met,” she confided, “And you look so much like him that we were certain you’d meet the same ends. But you are well-mannered and polite, and we are proud of you. Now, go upstairs and finish sorting through that box – I believe there were some of your father’s belongings near the bottom.”  
  
“Thank you, Aunt Petunia,” Harry said, surprised, and went to do as she said.  
  
*  
  
The Hufflepuff Seventh Years managed to get the best compartment on the train, the one directly after the Prefects’ compartment. This meant that Harry, Head Boy, and Susan, still the other Hufflepuff Prefect his Year, could drop in on their friends very regularly during the journey.  
  
Harry noticed that Ron was smiling at him in a wholly unexpected manner during his explanation to the new Prefects of their duties. Naturally, he smiled back, and then poked Susan whenever she started to giggle. Confused, he entered the discussion on how and when to take points from ones’ friends, arguing directly against the Head Girl, Hermione Granger. He’d never really gotten to know Hermione, except that she was very smart and offered tutorials to anyone who asked; he’d heard she was a very good teacher, but hadn’t needed to seek out her assistance for anything.  
  
After that, he excused himself for a moment, and went to play a round of Exploding Snap with anyone in the Hufflepuff compartment who was willing. Lucy, Elizabeth, and Hannah had disappeared off into parts unknown; Zach claimed they’d told the boys that they needed to make themselves pretty for the feast. But Tony and Justin were willing to play, and the mindless distraction of crackling cards prevented Harry from analysing too deeply the confusing look on Ron’s face.  
  
“I win!” he said eventually, victorious, and sat back to wait for the usual claims of cheating. But the guys had turned to look at the doorway, and Harry looked up to see Ron standing there, looking nervous.  
  
“Er, mind if I join you?” Ron asked.  
  
“No, sit right down,” Zach grinned in a manner Harry had not thought him capable of.  
  
“Yeah, shove over, Harry,” Ernie mocked, and Harry, blushing a little, hesitantly shifted over so that Ron could fit his long legs under the table comfortably.  
  
Conversation was awkward for the first several minutes, until Zach began to comprehensively critique Slytherin’s Beater tactics through the past five seasons. “And Crabbe and Goyle? Really, they have the combined skills of Neville Longbottom, and that’s saying something.”  
  
“Neville’s cool,” Ron defended his friend. “Crap at Quidditch,” he added, smiling, “You’ve got a point there, but he’s cool.”  
  
“He’s good at Herbology,” Justin offered. “And I don’t think Goyle’s really that bad – Crabbe brings him down a lot, I think.”  
  
Tony shifted in his seat. “That’s a bold statement, Justin. Did you fail to notice the way he _rammed his broom into the Ravenclaw stands_ last year?”  
  
“Yeah, but… ooh, look, it’s one o’clock. The dining compartment’ll be open now. I’m going to get some lunch.” At that, Justin grabbed his wallet, climbed past Harry and Ron, and left.  
  
“That’s a great idea, actually, I think I’ll go too…” said Zach, and Tony wordlessly followed.  
  
The conversation stilled to a halt. Finally, after five minutes of uncomfortable silence, Harry caught Ron glaring at Ernie in such a way that prompted Ernie to claim that he suddenly needed to go to the toilet, and depart.  
  
“Um,” said Harry, and looked at Ron. Even after three years of unrequited crushing on the boy, Harry still liked to just look at Ron: his freckles, his hair (which had grown long enough to curl at his collar), the peek of collarbone and shoulder through the thin collar of his shirt, the hair on his strong forearms….  
  
“Um,” replied Ron, who then closed his eyes, took a deep breath to summon every ounce of Gryffindor courage he possessed, leant forward, and mashed his lips against Harry’s.  
  
Harry’s mouth opened a little in surprise, and Ron took this as an invitation to thrust his tongue in between Harry’s teeth. Although this felt strange, Harry did like it, and so he leant into Ron, very careful not to place his hands anywhere on Ron’s person.  
  
After a minute or so, Ron broke the kiss and sat back a little. “Alright, Harry?” he asked, rather hoarsely.  
  
“Yeah,” Harry said, and giggled nervously.  
  
“Bloody Hufflepuffs, always giggling,” Ron retorted, smiling, and kissed him again.


End file.
